Thursday, July 21, 2016

Open Wide!

This post is just a personal musing...Why?... Why?... Why is this a thing?You know how some people can't stand looking at or touching peoples' feet? Or how some people can't stand the word "moist"? Or how some people get grossed out sharing drink cups with someone? Well, I know that some people also have issues with looking into peoples' mouths. And now there's this new trend of games using a device which, in my opinion, keeps your mouth open so wide that we can imagine what your skeletal skull looks like!!Gaaahhh!!! Again, I ask, WHY IS THIS A THING?The game Watch Ya' Mouth was the first one I saw like this on Kickstarter, which I mentioned on the State of Games Podcast, Episodes 107 and 108. I only mentioned it because I thought the game was kind of weird and silly. In this game, a plastic device called a cheek retractor is used to hold back your lips and cheeks so far that you can't bring your lips together to form coherent words, and teammates have to try to guess what you're reading off of cards provided in the game. And if you see pictures of people using these things, first off, people wonder about hygeine; but secondly, it just looks insane to me. I can see every tooth bump on your gums! No! I never needed to ever see this! This game funded on June 24th and earned over $27,000 of its $6,000 goal. The game is currently available for pre-order, and is expected to be shipped to backers by August 2016.Now Hasbro, in the wake of the successful Pie Face, recently announced a game that they will be releasing in August called Speak Out, which is very similar to Watch Ya' Mouth. It uses the same cheek retractor and is similar in gameplay in that it involves players trying to interpret the person speaking with their mouth held open.And if you search Kickstarter today, you'll find TWO MORE games with this same cheek retractor and similar gameplay! Gobby comes out of Australia and is unique in that it comes with an adults only version of crude cards. This game is over half-funded with 23 days left on the campaign as of the date of this blog post. The expected delivery date is September 2016. The other game is called Words are Hard!, which includes a game board which players must traverse. This campaign has just begun, but has an expected delivery date of October 2016, should it reach its funding.Four versions of the same, weird, gimmicky game to be available within a three month span.Again I ask...Why??Oh! And to assuage some peoples' concerns about hygiene, the cheek retractors have been said to be dishwasher-safe.https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/skyi/watch-ya-mouth-a-hilarious-party-gamehttp://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20160624005633/en/Hasbro-Brings-Mouth-Piece-Challenge-Masses-SPEAKhttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1440757623/gobby-the-card-game-thats-a-gob-full-of-funhttps://www.kickstarter.com/projects/567889692/words-are-hard-for-the-bored-gameopen mouth image: <a href="http://worldartsme.com/">WorldArtsMe</a>